Crafted of reclaimed cardboard, natural elements such as twigs,
and handmade paper made from junk mail and paper scraps - products
of the plant world that they mimic - Inertial Haze attempts
to arrest a moment or event in nature even as it depicts that growth
or population disappearing.

Retreat
and Collapse, 2011

Retreat (costume) was created for a dance performance (choreography
by Annette Christopher) and Collapse (wall construction)
developed out of Retreat. In the context of the performance
Retreat functions as a barrier to conflict and intimacy preventing
any sense of partnership or community. Collapse is an aesthetic
abstract of Retreat, explores the concept of dimensionality
and what might happen to Retreat without a sustaining body.
Created initially as independent works of art they collaborate to
bookend the spectrum of dimension.

Emergent
Stream, 2010

Emergent Stream plays with the notion of identification by
simultaneously evoking images of gusting leaves, schooling fish,
or falling petals.

Regenerate,
2009

Regenerate is a public interactive installation. The concept
was created collaboratively with Megan Reilly with design and construction
by L. Renee Nunez. First Night participants were invited to write
and attach affirmations for the environment on cornhusk butterflies
as part of the New Year celebration. The biodegradable materials
used reflect the well wishes for the environment and were allowed
to degrade.

Mountains,
Ships and Lives, 2008

Mountains, Ships and Lives explores themes of impermanence
and fragility. The units are delicately balanced on bamboo legs
and gently quiver to the touch. Paper streamers are suspended in
the interior and fly, billow, conceal, or divulge depending on how
they are manipulated. This interactive installation was commissioned
for live performance by the Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company.

Synaptic
Route: Endangered Species, 2004 - 2009synapse: the point at which a nervous impulse passes from
one neuron to anothersynaptic route: physical path in the circuitry
of the brain made by the repeated passage of nervous impulses

My Synaptic Route collection is a series of works using the
grid and pattern to simultaneously document brain patterning and
images of rare plants. Plant parts including the flower and fruit
have a natural symmetry and intricacy - characteristics which lend
themselves to the repetition of pattern making.

The idea for documenting brain patterning came from the term muscle
memory which I learned as a professional modern dancer. Dancers
and athletes in particular use this term to to describe the conjunction
of mental memory and the conditioning of muscles to perform a particular
movement or action. This idea for me spread into an exploration
of patterns of thought, specifically those related to repetitive
physical actions.

In my Synaptic Route collection this means giving attention
to the physical synaptic route activated in the brain while creating.
I wanted to watch and determine the formation of a synaptic
route as it happened and document it in my work. In order for the
pattern to be precise enough for a habit to form I needed a base
structure: the grid.

The grid allows for substantially exact repetitions of a drawing
which appear almost mechanical. The process of repeated drawing
enables a precise route to burn into the brain. Each
painting is a program designed to create a synaptic route for each
image selected. This series features endangered plant species, species
of special concern and rare plants.

Replicating
endangered plants artificially not only produces documentation
of the synaptic route, but the pattern itself dematerializes the
surface of the painting creating a state of mind not unlike meditation.
In this stillness and quiet endangered plants can be contemplated.